There was an actress.
She was married to a handsome man.
They had a daughter.
They had been happy.
Now the actress was alone in the big house.
She was unhappy.
The end.
Chloe wondered if, in getting to know Lana, she might ever fill in what had happened in the time between “they had been happy” and “the end.” Lana seemed to watch Chloe’s expressions as she looked over the photos. Chloe felt the hard stare. She made a slight connection between the photo album and a book of the occult in Lana’s collection. It held a place of esteem in the room, the only book opened on a table and seemingly in constant use. The table was cleared of all else but a couple of candles.
Desperate wanting, Chloe knew, would cause people to try anything. Anything at all. Desperate wanting could cause people to believe in the invisible with more zeal than what was right in front of their eyes.
The axe struck the wood with a harsh knock. Chloe watched it rise and fall as she brought the iced tea to Jeff. Jeff had found the axe in the barn. The blade no longer gleamed. It was too old and dull for that. Now it bit into the wood, snarling and rusting, instead of splitting it. To split a block, even a rotting one, took more than a few swings. Yet it still looked dangerous to Chloe. An implement of chaos.
They needed the wood for this winter. Just this one. They planned to get a gas stove after this year. Or that was the plan once things between them had smoothed over and their marriage was healed. Since that would never happen, though, there was no use spending the money. They’d be gone by spring. She would at least. Jeff might choose to stay.
The axe scattered the block of wood into pieces at last. One of the larger, more jagged bits landed at her feet.
“Don’t stand too close to me,” Jeff said under heavy breaths. “Not when I do this. You could get hurt.” He took the tea from her. “Thank you.”
“I thought you could use a drink.” The hope in her voice was gone, as was the pleading. She was disgusted with herself for clinging so long to it.
As he drank, he rested an elbow on the axe hilt. The blade pressed into the ground. Wood splinters surrounded him. How easy would it be for the love of her life to sink the dull axe blade into her skull? Would she die instantly, or would there need to be excessive hacking, blow after blow? “Hold on, dear, while I cut off your head. Stop dancing around the yard, dear. Stop dancing.”
There it was again. A giggling, as if it had heard Chloe’s thoughts. It came from the barn door this time. Jeff seemed not to notice. He kept drinking and avoiding her eyes. Still, that avoidance was better than the vengeful stare she had received from him when he was fixing the rope in the barn. And this time, she was positive the voice wasn’t in her head. It couldn’t be. She wanted to ask if Jeff had heard it but knew better. Jeff hated her ‘feelings,’ her sensing of things. Even if it had saved his life once before.
He took a final drink from the glass of tea and handed it back to Chloe. She noticed the welts and scratches on his forearms and now a couple on his neck.
“I must have gotten into some ivy or something,” he said.
Chloe didn’t pursue the matter, though her doubts were multitude. “I’m going to head into town,” she said, “maybe check out the library. I need something to read. I’ll pick up some cream for you. You wouldn’t want that to get infected.”
Jeff said nothing. He picked up the axe and waited for Chloe to walk away, holding it with both hands while he stared down a new block of wood.
She put the glass on the kitchen counter and left, a breaking of wood coinciding with the slam of the Jeep door. She had questions. She needed answers. And there were only two places to find them: the town and the actress. She’d try the town first.
***
The town library was a boxy place set apart from the other buildings and given a special place on a small hill. It was as historic as the rest of Wicker, though not particularly beautiful. The only thing of interest about the architecture of the structure was the little dome that bubbled up out of its center. The library reminded Chloe of a contestant’s buzzer on a game show, ready to be slammed in answer to some trivia question about film or history. Little towns are cute. They think cute things. They strut their cuteness along rivers and immaculate main streets. They do this so their secrets and acidic malevolence can be better hidden.
Chloe still felt the eyes of the town on her. There was perhaps nothing malevolent about the township’s gaze toward her in particular, but there was a difference in how she and Jeff were seen by Wicker (as its newest residents) and how the average tourist was seen. At some point, she surmised, the town would have to decide whether or not to let her in on all of their little secrets. In the meantime, they just smiled pleasantly.
The history of the town and the surrounding county was public record, but Chloe found very little about the hill on which she and Jeff lived. The census, while going back many years, offered her only a small amount of information other than the surnames of the land owners. The only mention Chloe could find about the hill itself in the archives was when Lana Pruitt had moved there years earlier:
FAMOUS ACTRESS MOVES TO BAD LUCK HILL
Bad Luck Hill. She wasn’t certain it was the proper name of the place. There wasn’t anything to confirm or dismiss it as such. But Chloe acknowledged that, from her experience there so far, it was an appropriate sobriquet. As far as where that particular nickname had come from, again, there was no clue. At last, she sat back in her chair and breathed deeply in frustration, disappointed her search had turned up nothing.
Her attention was caught up and drawn to the window as a small stream, a parade, of people dressed in black took to the street. They passed the library, not a smile among them. Eight tall and thin pallbearers carried a casket at the front of the mourners, and leading them all was the quiet sister Chloe had seen at the store named Alma. Other townsfolk watched the parade from the sidewalks, stopping in shows of respect.
The town librarian, a Mr. Craft, balding, with deep-set eyes and an old voice, came up beside her. “It’s a sad day,” he said.
“Was it someone very important?” Chloe asked.
“Odette? Yes. Very important. I haven’t seen a turnout like this since the herring run. But at least the poor thing died in her sleep. That’s all we can ask for, isn’t it? That’s all any of us can ask for.”
“I suppose so.” She was reminded to get the cream for Jeff’s rash. But would the store even be open now?
“Did you find what you were looking for?” the librarian asked as she readied to leave. She had been watched. It was a disconcerting feeling that was becoming all too familiar here and something she realized she would need to get used to.
“Not really,” she said, slipping back into her jacket.
Mr. Craft had a mortuary look about him—tall and thin, with long fingers that could easily navigate delicate situations. His head, like the rest of him, was narrow, as if pressed.
“I was looking for information on my new home,” Chloe said. “Just as a project. But there doesn’t seem to be anything here about the cottage, or even the hill, that can help me.”
“There was a fire here a few years ago that wiped out nearly all the older books and archives.” He looked very interested in her project. It was as if his eyes came forward from their deep-set positions in his head. He wore a slight grin that made him appear like a wilting jack-o’-lantern. “My cousin, Mary Beth, is the town archivist. She comes in once a week if you’d like to meet with her. I’m sure she’d be happy to help you with your research. Our family has run the library since Wicker was founded. We have records that haven’t been shelved here for decades. I’m sure there’s something in there about Bad Luck Hill. In fact, I’m positive there is.”
“Um… maybe. It’s not that important.” She made an awkward attempt to leave. Mr. Craft’s curiosity for her project seemed intrusive.
The librarian stepped in front of her with one long stride. “I can help,” he said enthusiastically, his words stretching like snakes on a vine. “I can answer any questions you might have. Or, at least, help spread some rumors.” He smiled with all the charm his slender form allowed. The edges of his smile seemed to lift the rest of his body like a hanger.
Chloe understood she was not going to be let out of the building until she let him talk. “Okay. Why is it called Bad Luck Hill?”
“Oh, that’s nothing. Just silly teenagers and their ghost stories. That’s not to say there hasn’t been…”
“Go on.”
Mr. Craft looked over his shoulders, yet barely turned his head. There was no one else in the library, but he appeared cautious just the same. “It’s all quite entertaining,” he said enthusiastically. “The hill itself is nothing more than haunt legends. But the big house and
your
cottage”—he pointed a long, untrimmed finger at her—“those are the real stories. I shouldn’t be telling you any of this, really.”
“Why not?”
He raised his index finger as if to hush her. “Before the actress bought the place—long before—a family lived in that little cottage below it… your cottage. A mother, a father, and three tykes, if you can believe it, all cramped into that itty-bitty cottage. Can you imagine children? In
there
?”
“No.”
“No, indeed. Well, apparently, from eyewitnesses”—the librarian drew closer to Chloe—“
apparently
, the oldest boy was
quite
disturbed. He started with animals. He’d kill them, skin them. You know, the sort of thing that might someday manifest itself into a serial killer. That’s what they say on the television, anyway. That’s how they say serial killers start out. Well, his parents didn’t know what to do. Thank goodness they didn’t come into town too often with the children. Nobody wants to be around a future serial killer, after all.
“From what I’ve been told—I was just a baby when all this happened, mind you—from what I’ve been told, the father died of something. Most likely from the stress brought on by having a lunatic son. One couldn’t then expect the mother to raise three children well, especially if one of them was…” He twirled his eyes and let his strip of a tongue hang from his mouth. “The mother decided to lock the boy in the barn like he was some animal. I guess it was all she could do. After all, she couldn’t have him snapping one day and harming the other children… or anyone here in town, for that matter…”
“None of the eyewitnesses reported that the boy was living in the barn?”
“Living?” He smiled crookedly. “Nobody had time to. Soon after, everything quieted down and the family just disappeared. Every last one of them.
Poof!
Gone. All their furniture, all their belongings, everything they owned, was left there untouched. People had been expecting quite a macabre scene when the rumors of the boy in the barn had reached Wicker. But there was no corpse tied up in the barn or hanging from its rafters. It was quite a disappointment after all that buildup, I can tell you. There were no bodies at all. It was as if they had vanished into thin air.”
“Surely somebody saw them leave. There’s only one way off the hill from what I’ve seen. And forgive me, but Wicker seems a very watchful place.”
“Thin air
. Poof!
” His hand gestures were that of a magician. “There were rumors, of course. Some even said they had seen one of the children on the side of the hill, but nothing was ever substantiated.”
“That all sounds like an urban legend to me, Mr. Craft,” Chloe said.
“It’s the story that’s told.” He shrugged his hangers. “Take it or leave it. But the family was
strange
. There’s no denying that. Why, after the problems with the boy, the mother came into town—to this very library—and borrowed one of our oldest books. A book of the occult, witchcraft, spells, and the like. She never returned it. We don’t loan out our older books anymore after that. One only has to learn that lesson once.”
Chloe remembered the large leather book in Lana Pruitt’s personal library. If Mr. Craft’s story was true, it had to be the same volume of spells. It wasn’t like there were many of them around, after all.
“And what about the big house?” she asked.
“For years, it was a summer home for a very wealthy man. In time, he got too old to care for the place and it remained empty for some time, inviting only teenagers and vandals. Then the actress, Lana Pruitt—her, her husband, and her little girl—finally bought the old place and moved in.”
Chloe’s gaze was traveling. Remembering. “The girl died. I found her grave in the garden. Stumbled upon it by accident, really.” She held up her hand before the librarian could speak. “I don’t want to know how.”
Mr. Craft seemed deflated, as if she had taken away his fun.
“No one ever knew what happened to the actress’s husband, Michael. Like the family in the cottage, he was just gone one day. But there are rumors.” He gave a sly look.
“That she killed him?”
“That she killed them both. Her husband and her daughter. That she was as crazy as the little boy decades earlier.”
***
The remote control lay on his knee. The need to scratch was gone now. As Jeff sat slouched on the couch, trying to find something on the television, he didn’t feel a thing aside from the diggings his own fingers had carved into his forearm, neck, and chest. Maybe there was something in the air here. Maybe he was allergic to some plant. It would have been odd, yes, being that he had been all over the world in his career and had never once had an allergic reaction to anything. Yet he was working in the dampness of a well. He had never done that before. Caves, yes. Wells, no.